Fires on the Plain

Rating:
Summary: De Profundis Clamavi
Review: Abandoned by his company, Private Tamura wanders Leyte Island with neither a reason to live nor a reason to die. Ooka's starving Japanese soldier is absolutely captivating in his determination to analyze the horrors of warfare objectively while he witnesses them first hand. Stumbling through countless forests and mountains, the poetry that seeps from his reasoning is all the more powerful given his completely numbed and desensitized state. There's simultaneous beauty and terror in every one of Tamura's insights all the way through to his confrontations with cannibalism and his struggles to discern between God and himself. My only hope is that on second reading I might better understand some more of the abstract themes Ooka tackles. It's so beautiful...do read it!

Rating:
Summary: De Profundis Clamavi
Review: Abandoned by his company, Private Tamura wanders Leyte Island with neither a reason to live nor a reason to die. Ooka's starving Japanese soldier is absolutely captivating in his determination to analyze the horrors of warfare objectively while he witnesses them first hand. Stumbling through countless forests and mountains, the poetry that seeps from his reasoning is all the more powerful given his completely numbed and desensitized state. There's simultaneous beauty and terror in every one of Tamura's insights all the way through to his confrontations with cannibalism and his struggles to discern between God and himself. My only hope is that on second reading I might better understand some more of the abstract themes Ooka tackles. It's so beautiful...do read it!

Rating:
Summary: Good Novel, but Confusing at Times
Review: as part of a WWII Class I had to read this novel in addition to George Neill's Infantry Soldier. That way we got a perspective from both sides of the war. Ohka's tale is less glamerous, as his tale is about his experiences in a defeated Japanese Army, that is essentially waiting to die. Ohka does a superb job at portraying the futileness, sickness and malaise experienced by his comrades and himself. Ohka also manages to get through a message about the inhumanity of war, and how it leads men to turn into animals. This is done quite well, both figuratively and literally. My only qualm with the novel is certain points where the reading gets too abstract. But I admit, I may be a little biased, as I expected a straight war narrative. While Ohka provides that, he also manages to throw in questions about man, and humanity, and asks what the point is to all the fighting.

Rating:
Summary: Good Novel, but Confusing at Times
Review: as part of a WWII Class I had to read this novel in addition to George Neill's Infantry Soldier. That way we got a perspective from both sides of the war. Ohka's tale is less glamerous, as his tale is about his experiences in a defeated Japanese Army, that is essentially waiting to die. Ohka does a superb job at portraying the futileness, sickness and malaise experienced by his comrades and himself. Ohka also manages to get through a message about the inhumanity of war, and how it leads men to turn into animals. This is done quite well, both figuratively and literally. My only qualm with the novel is certain points where the reading gets too abstract. But I admit, I may be a little biased, as I expected a straight war narrative. While Ohka provides that, he also manages to throw in questions about man, and humanity, and asks what the point is to all the fighting.

Rating:
Summary: A treat for all the senses -- beautiful and bizarre.
Review: Ooka Shohei's Fires on the Plain (Nobi) is vividly transcribed and will leave readers with a lasting impression. The author manages to merge stunning literary description with the horrors of war as seen from the point of view of a losing army. The protagonist's slow descent into madness is sublimely rendered -- at once painful to read yet impossible to put down. Like another reviewer posting here, I too read this on a plane and found myself transported 50 years and thousands of miles to the Philippines, amid lush jungles and the fallout of armed conflict. The impact of this novel's stunning end must be experienced to be appreciated. An engaging and educational read that speaks eloquently to our most basic human needs, desires, delusions and taboos.

Rating:
Summary: Fires on the Plain
Review: The part that gave me a shiver was when the protagonist's own left hand stopped him from cutting up a dead soldier's body to eat the flesh and he found it God's hand, not his. Such a beautiful scene. It still makes me cry.

Rating:
Summary: Fires on the Plain
Review: The part that gave me a shiver was when the protagonist's own left hand stopped him from cutting up a dead soldier's body to eat the flesh and he found it God's hand, not his. Such a beautiful scene. It still makes me cry.